it's the most wonderful time of the year
by Gazelle Of Endrrat
Summary: They like to spend Christmas together, in some way.


They send texts to each other whenever they can. Always in between bites of their dinner (Wally's mother glares at him when he's caught looking down at his phone at the table) or when they have a moment to themselves.

"I don't understand why you didn't invite Artemis and her mother over for the holidays."

Wally hears enough of it at his house and Artemis fares no better.

"Wallace is not a stranger. He's allowed to join us."

The fact that her mother stills calls him "Wallace" is proof enough that she shouldn't bring her boyfriend to their holiday dinner. He'd probably embarrass himself, and give her some second hand embarrassment in the middle of it, so badly that she'd probably throw him out before her mother could make any type of comment.

Christmas approaches and even though it's not a big deal in her house she knows it's a big deal in his.

"Uncle Barry already picked out a couple of trees."

"What?" Artemis picks up her shoulder to hold the phone in between it and her ear. She places the plate she's been washing for the past five minutes down. "A couple of trees?"

"Yeah. He wants to pick the perfect one from the bunch."

"Any reason he's taking Christmas decorating really serious?"

"It's not just my uncle. Aunt Iris is going nuts on the wreaths and don't get started on my mom. She's been making every pie known to man."

"As if you're complaining," she snorts.

"I'm not complaining… You know I would never," he adds. "But it's not fair that she gave the coconut custard pie to Conner!"

Artemis laughs and has to call him back later.

It's Christmas day and Artemis is almost jumping out of her shoes. She's walking to the zeta beam near her house and she can hardly wait. Her mother basically pushed her out of the apartment and told her that she'd be fine even after Artemis told her she could just stay home.

Every other minute she gets a message, always with a picture too, from Wally. Instead of just telling her about his day he decided to take a picture of everything.

She's putting in the designation into the computer when she gets another from him.

He's in his uniform and surrounded by kids and she giggles, actually giggles. Almost a dozen of children are holding onto him or trying to bring him down to their level. Barry's in the back, trying to pry them off of his nephew.

_Told them I had to go see someone._

She hurries out of the zeta beam and isn't surprised to see no one in the little dead end the zeta was located in.

She waits for a minute before she feels a rush of air. "You're a bit late."

"Aw, come on, Artemis!" He's behind her and she spins around on her heels. "You know what I had to deal with to get here!"

He's still in uniform and she would have been angry any other day but she couldn't help but grin at that moment.

"It's not anything worse than what you usually deal with."

"I would pick Captain Cold over that any day."

They laugh.

She kisses his cheek. "Merry Christmas."

"And Merry Christmas to you too." He pecks her lips before leaning back.

They go back to her home and he tells her and her mother of the Allen-West-Garrick shenanigans that were going on.

Her mother makes hot chocolate and they give Wally his gift- a pair of sneakers he's been wanting for the past couple of months. He's so happy that he almost tackles her with kisses and hugs but is stopped by Paula and her head shakes.

They say goodbye when it gets late and she promises to visit his home the next day.

When he pulls out the mistletoe she has no complains or even a snarky comment. She just kisses him, chocolate breath and all.

—-

"I've known you for five years and you still haven't gotten the art of decorating down?" Wally shakes his head and finishes wrapping up the lights around the tree at the top.

He's tall enough for their tree. In the past years, when the team got a tree or when his family bought one, he couldn't even reach the top. He always had to get a stool to put the star. This one wasn't even that tall. Just enough to not go past his head. It wasn't silver or fake, which pleased Wally, and it was bought on sale, which made Artemis happy. "Have I taught you nothing?"

Artemis puts down the glass snowman she's holding and places her hands on her hips. "Do you want my help or not?"

"Just as long as you listen to me when I tell you where to put the decorations."

Artemis rolls her eyes but nods. "Fine."

They work in silence for a while. She laughs now and then at the faces he makes. He likes to completely block himself from the world around him with the work at hand. His tongue sticks out when he needs to concentrate harder and the worry line in between his eyebrows deepens as frustration builds. She didn't know setting up lights would be so difficult.

The tree is done only twenty minutes later. It's lopsided and some of the branches are droopy. Wally doesn't mind, he's too happy with having a Christmas tree. While he's setting up the pulled apart cotton balls under the tree, Artemis sneaks back into her room.

She's quietly putting her gift under the bed. It's not wrapped yet and she doesn't know how she's going to keep it a secret until Christmas. He was already looking in their closet for any sign of a gift. He even got upset when she wouldn't give him a hint.

She already knows what he's getting her. He couldn't keep it a secret which was fine by her. She doesn't like surprises.

Brucely comes in and sniffs the floor before looking at the bed. His head quirks to the side and he goes to look under the bed but Artemis stops him.

"No," she grabs him by the neck and pulls him back gently. "No, don't do that," she whispers. "You are not ruining the surprise, got it?" She tries to look stern, but his clueless eyes make her laugh. He licks at her cheek before huffing and strolling away.

"Artemis! Come on! I'm turning on the lights!"

"Alright, alright. I'm coming," she pushes herself off the floor before making her way to the living room.

She has to stop when she reaches the entry way from the hallway. It's dark and she can't see where Wally is. Artemis reaches out for the couch and holds on while she makes her way around it. "Why is it so dark?"

"Hold on." She hears him rummaging through cables and bags. She waits patiently, but taps her foot to speed him up. "Okay! Got it! Ready for this, babe?"

"Already was.."

"One… Two… Three."

There's a soft click and hundreds of tiny lights turn on.

The ones hung off the ceiling are yellow and cover the rest of the apartment in warmth. She wants to just cover herself in a blanket and fall asleep under them. They hung low but it still looked amazing. The lights on the tree are only green, red, and white. They're placed so perfectly that the ornaments around seem shinier.

Artemis smiles lightly.

The walls, full of posters and pictures, have wreaths and signs saying, "Happy Holidays" and "Merry Christmas."

And Artemis is sure she sees a little Santa figurine on the kitchen table.

"So what do you think!?" Wally throws his hands up to gesture to everything.

"Do I think working on the decorations the whole day was worth it?" Artemis took a moment, mostly to play with him. "Yes, I do." She smiles and he grins. "It's beautiful."

"Ah, it needs one more thing."

"What else do you need to put up? You pretty much got every Christmas sign in the world on our walls."

"The star," Wally reaches behind their tree to grab the small star. It was gold and it was her choice. She didn't like the silver ones they found and so he ran as fast as he could to the nearest store from their house to get that perfect, gold, simple star.

"You're gonna have to do it. Your star, your job," Wally holds it out for her. She smiles and takes it. Artemis walks to the tree and by standing on her tip-toes she places the star on perfectly.

Wally looks at it from different angles and grins. "It looks great."

"Of course, I finished it off," she gets to him and wraps her arms around his torso. "But you did a good job too."

"Thanks," he leans down to kiss her cheek. "Couldn't have done it without my helper… Brucely, where are you buddy? Gotta thank you."

Artemis laughs and pushes him away.

Later, when they're tired from cleaning up, they stay on the couch and watch movies. The Christmas lights are on and they're wrapped up in blankets. They stay up late and laugh and make jokes. He falls asleep first and she has to get up and turn off the lights (She knows their electricity is going off the roof). She feels happy when she goes back to him afterwards and sleeps with him, peacefully, while the sun rises.

—

"Wally?"

He's at her door. It's ten in the morning and he's in Gotham at her door.

"Hi," he says. His ears are pink and he can't look her in the eye.

Artemis feels her heart squeeze itself tighter and tighter, and though she knows that that isn't even possible, she still feels it. He looks too cute and she's, again, starting to feel that annoying feeling. She knows it could just be a crush but he's there and he's making her morning.

"M- Merry Christmas!" He blurts out.

"It's January tenth."

"Okay, look. We didn't spend our Christmas together. None of us did," Wally says. "I mean, I've moved on from it and all but I just… Look, I just wanted to give you this." He brings the beautifully wrapped gift from behind his back. "I didn't know what to get you so I kind of just did something last minute and if you don't like it, I'll just take it back and get you something different…" He rushes through his words, but she doesn't pay attention because she's examining the gift.

Her heart is beating quickly and she feels like she's going to start freaking out which she doesn't want to do in front of him. "Thanks," and without a second thought, she's ripping the paper off.

It's a small case, plain and brown, and a lot heavier than she thought it would be. She gives him a look before opening it. There's ten of them. Each different but all matching in color- green.

"I know how you said that you wanted to try more trick arrows. So I made them for you. I mean, I had help of course but I came up with the… You know, that doesn't matter, but I just tried new things. There's a mini-rocket one in there. And I made sure to make a pressure arrow because I know how you wanted that one for a while…." He would have went on and on but one look of Artemis' face and he stopped. "Or I can just take them back-"

"Thank you."

"What?"

"Thank you," she begins to smile and has to bite down on her bottom lip. She picks up one and spins it around. "I appreciate it."

"You just appreciate it?" Wally's back to his old self. He's no longer nervous and though there's a pink tint to his cheeks, which she finds too cute for words, he's acting normal. "I went through so much work-"

"If you brought it to me at a normal time today, maybe when I wasn't sleeping, I would have loved it."

He wants to say something back but doesn't. Instead he grins. "You're welcome."

They smile at her each other for a while and it doesn't get awkward because she's tired and he's making a dopey face that she can't help but love and he's just too happy that she likes his gift.

Before her mother could wake up, Artemis gets ready and rushes out of the house. After she wrote a note to her mom as to where she was going, she leaves with Wally to a nearby cafe for a date.


End file.
